Reader Bait: My Top Ten Bookish Lures

My tastes may have widened and refined over the years but I'm self-aware enough to realize that some tropes can make a book enjoyable for me even if everything else is meh.

Whenever I come across a new book, I'm carefully read the plot and the reviews before I consider adding them to my TBR. But all of that critical evaluation is thrown out of the window if books have a few specific things. If it looks like a book is centred on one of these tropes, I'm highly likely to abandon my other reading plans and pick it up immediately.

Grab a cup of coffee/tea and settle into your couch, let's talk about bookish lures than can lead me to bad decisions ☕️📚

This post is inspired by Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly themed prompt hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl.

1. online and offline relationships

Stories where the main characters either form a bond online and meet offline or have opposing relationships online and offline. It creates so many layers in characters and relationships. The stories almost always have some amount of self-reckoning or character development in order to make their relationship work. I like that this trope creates tension while also having comfort.

This is my #1 reader bait because it's a bit rare. It's becoming more common nowadays but there still aren't enough books with this trope. It has so many possibilities especially with all the different online options but I've only seen a few cases in books. So far I've read every book I've come across organically which has this trope.

Off the top of my head, books with this trope that I've enjoyed are: The Exception to the Rule by Christina Lauren (a fav!), Didn't See That Coming by Jesse Q. Sutanto, Hold Me by Courtney Milan, and In Real Life by Jessica Love.

2. cinderella retellings

My love for the retellings started with the movie A Cinderella Story starring Hillary Duff. I loved that movie when I was in school. I wasn't in a great place (mentally) and the concept of meeting the love of your life and going away to a better future appealed a lot. I really liked the other 2 popular Cinderella retelling movies as well starring Selena Gomez and Lucy Hale.

Although I've been on the lookout for Cinderella retellings in books, I haven't come across many. The results that come up when I search for them don't feel great either. Out of the Cinderella retellings that I've read, I've liked very few. I wouldn't include any of them in my favourites.

Today, I'm in a much better place and I don't wish for that escape. I still love the concept because of the comfort it brought me when I was younger. However, my love for it is put through trials because as I matured, I realized that I don't actually like a 100% damsel-in-distress story. It's hard to write a Cinderella retelling where the main character takes charge of her life while also running away and finding home somewhere else with someone.

It is possible, though. Recently, I read The Glass Gate by Hanna Sandvig and it is the best Cinderella retelling I've read so far. The main character has a great passion in her life that's not love, she's in a sucky situation but grabs the opportunity to go away from it herself, organically falls in love with the prince, and chooses to run away to the prince instead of the other good options she has because of valid reasons.

3. hades & persephone retellings

I don't think I'm alone in this, Hades & Persephone's story is widely loved and there are several retellings on it. The characters and their romance is so intriguing and interesting because it goes against everything that other Greek gods are. They are powerful enough and confident enough to live by their rules and not care about the rest. Which one of us doesn't want to be that way too?

The only thing with this is that most retellings stick to the original story fairly closely. Hades is in the underworld, Persephone is an innocent and pure goddess (I think?). I like it but I'd love to see different versions too where instead the main characters defy the way of life that everyone else follows and set their own rules without it being in the actual underworld or Olympus.

Hades & Persephone retellings that I've loved: Drag Me Up by R.M. Virtues (set in the modern world! not literal underworld!) and Girl, Goddess, Queen by Bea Fitzgerald (I love how the characters are rewritten to be very different people).

4. coder/software engineer/developer main character

I may not have fallen passionately in love with coding when I was introduced to it but I am a software engineer by profession and I enjoy it a fair amount. I love reading books with coder main characters because I can connect to them a bit more. It feels more relatable. I love reading something they say and going, "oh I know what they're talking about!"

Considering how software engineering jobs are fairly commonly known nowadays, it's a bit of a tragedy that there are not that many books with that profession front-and-centre. Is it because writers don't understand software engineering? (Extrapolating this from commentary in some books I've read.) Or is it because the job is considered boring? (It's not even though we sit on a laptop all day.)

Books that don't count: ones where the character apparently coded an app and sold it for thousands of dollars and is so rich that they don't do anything anymore. I want to see active software engineers.

Some books with such main characters that I've liked: Bride by Ali Hazelwood, Just For the Summer by Abby Jimenez (the mention is literally 2 lines but that was enough for me to go: "oh! lead software engineer! standup! work from home!" 😂), The Boyfriend App by Katie Sisi, and Warcross by Marie Lu.

5. sassy/sarcastic main character

I'm much more likely to enjoy a book if the main character is snarky, sassy, and/or sarcastic. It makes reading the book fun. Their monologues are enough to make the book fun sometimes. It's also highly entertaining when they interact with broody characters. I often smile or laugh when I read such books.

I love books with fun main characters because it actually feels more real. We're all a little weird and unhinged. We're all laughing and cracking jokes because otherwise we'd cry. 90% of the times my college friend group's WhatsApp chat is active, the conversation dissolves into only stickers by the end.

Hence, there's a huge disconnect when I read books filled with serious people who don't really joke or have random harmless fun. In real life, people often roast each other in close friendships. It's a way of showing affection. It's actually a bit weird when people only have heart-to-hearts and regular "serious" conversations in books.

Books with sassy/sarcastic main character that I've highly enjoyed: Bride by Ali Hazelwood, The Hollow Star Saga by Ashley Shuttleworth (Nausicaä made everything 100% more fun), Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood, Battle Royal by Lucy Parker, and all the Percy Jackson books, of course.

6. is on kindle unlimited

Availability is a real problem, okay? Firstly, a lot of books are not available in India at all. Even when they are, they are too expensive even as a digital copy. There are many books that I haven't read simply because they aren't available and affordable. I still add some to my TBR but I don't give them a shot unless the payoff seems worth it.

If you take a look at my reading, most of them are ebooks out of which most are from Kindle Unlimited. Amz may be highly problematic but KU is the only way I can read so many books without going fully broke. KU is genuinely a really great deal in India considering we have no public libraries and bookstores are hard to find and super expensive. ₹169 a month is a STEAL DEAL. Considering that each book is ₹350+ as digital copies too, even reading one book a month in KU makes the subscription worth it.

Whenever I come across books that I want to read, I first check if they're on Kindle Unlimited. If they are, I immediately borrow them or add them to my TBR. Even if the book is only a bit interesting, I will give it a shot. If the book is not on KU, I will add it to my TBR and let it be there for months to make sure that I'm really interested in it and the price is worth it. This is also the reason why romance usually makes up a majority of my reading, it's much more easily available and affordable.

KU has really good books too. Especially in romance. You just have to search for them. So I don't feel like I'm missing out if I let other books go. It does mean that some of my reading may not be as great because my bar is lower for KU books but that's okay.

I've already written a whole list of amazing Kindle Unlimited romance books. Other than romance, here are a few I've enjoyed through KU: The Sword of Kaigen by M. L. Wang (astonished that this is still on KU considering the hype), The Tea Dragon series by K. O'Neill, and Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (this isn't on KU anymore).

7. a close friend loves it/hypes it up a lot

I have a few friends whose tastes overlap enough with mine that I know I will enjoy books that they recommend, even if it's out of my comfort zone. I don't have a lot of friends like this—I'm somehow friends with people whose tastes are faaar away from mine too—but the few I have are enough.*

This trust is built up over time by slowly reading other books till the point that I will take everything they recommend. It takes a lot of hit-and-misses to get to that point. I can think of many books that I've read on others' recommendations which I highly disliked. That's why, once I've read enough books that I will love, I will immediately add their recs to my list.

The only thing is that I don't usually get to these books immediately. I tried a couple of times but realized that my mood really matters. So I add the books to my TBR and wait for the right mood to read them.

Interestingly, it's more likely that I'm the go-to person for recommendations for someone than vice-versa. Maybe it's because I closely note what a person reads and likes (or reads and doesn't talk about) before recommending books and hence I am able to give on-point recommendations. Similarly, my music recommendations are usually on-point even though I usually don't like others' recommendations, even from the same people to whom I recommend well.

It's far easier for me to think of instances where I disliked others' recommendations or which I recommended and they liked than it is to recall which I liked.

The only book(s) that comes to mind which was on a friends' super hyped recommendation and that I loved is All for the Game series by Nora Sakavic. I can't seem to recall anything else that I really liked.

* Conversely, I know people whose tastes are so different that I take note of the books they enjoy only to make sure I don't read them 😂

8. found family trope

I like pretty much any book with this trope. It needs to be done well, of course. It can't be a random mishmash of people where it doesn't make sense why they're together. I want a group of people who grew closer through trials and bad times and became family through it all.

Found family trope where they're super close is great. However, my top favourite is when the characters openly call their found family "family". I love it when they've been through so much that they're basically family and are not ashamed to think of it that way. I want books where they drop plans to help each other out during illnesses, go on errands together, and even if there is romance, it doesn't shake up the group a lot. The found family is its own thing.

Although many books have found families, not all of them are written well enough for the found family itself to be comforting. It's usually a secondary plot happening along with something else. I don't mind it when romance or action is happening but I like it when the found family's relationship is shown enough to be a thing on its own. When it's written and shown well, it's super comforting.

Books I've loved where the found family trope has comparatively more page-time: All for the Game series by Nora Sakavic (OF COURSE), The Hollow Star Saga by Ashley Shuttleworth, and Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto.

9. by an author whose books i've (mostly) loved

My standards aren't that high but still it's really hard to find an author whose books I like all of.

Firstly, it's hard enough to be interested in reading all the books by a certain author. For example, I've enjoyed a few books by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and I'm interested in a few other books by her, but I'm not interested in all the books she's written.

Even if I am interested in all of their books (at least in the beginning), it's more likely that I like some books and can manage to read the rest even if I dislike them. Authors have all the right to experiment and try out different things in their books—not everything is my thing, though.

I find it fairly hard to trust an author enough to add them on my "auto-read" list. Over the years, some authors who were on the list have dropped off due to new releases that aren't my thing. Considering the number of books I've read, the number of authors whose new books I will most definitely give a shot is quite low. And that is why I trust their writing even more.

Authors whose new books will definitely be read by me (as of this point in life): Ann Liang, Abby Jimenez (even though a few books were terrible, some books were amazing and I'm hoping for more amazing books), RuNyx, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Aanchal Malhotra (maybe only her non-fiction, though. I HATED The Book of Everlasting Things), and Nora Sakavic.

10. non-fiction book about creativity

Somehow, I stumbled upon this subsection of non-fiction and it is the reason I gave non-fiction a proper shot again. When I first read Show Your Work, I knew that I wanted to read more books like it.

Good non-fiction books about creativity are valuable and helpful. This is the only section of non-fiction that I will spend money on easily. In fact, I have 5 such books on my shelf. It is a huge portion considering my physical shelf contains only 50 books. That's a whole 10% of my shelf.

Maybe these books may not have meant a thing to me a bunch of years ago but they're my thing now. Being a software engineer who tries to make art after work, I deal with two very different kinds of creativity every day. Hence, the whole concept of creativity/creative thinking is fascinating to me. I love reading books that give me more insight into it, that help me do better, and that open different perspectives.

Some non-fiction books about creativity that I keep on my shelf because I know that I'll reread them many times: Show Your Work by Austin Kleon, The Art of Creative Thinking by Rod Judkins, and Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte.

chat with me!

What are your top booking lures? What makes you buy a book or add it to your list immediately? Do we have any in common?